SHEIN EXPOSED AS JOURNALIST GOES UNDERCOVER AMONG FACTORY WORKERS
A journalist has gone undercover and exposed the fast-fashion company Shein for taking advantage of its employees.
Shein is an online clothing store based in China. The store is known for selling clothes at cheap prices and shipping the items to the four corners of the world. The company recently hit record-breaking figures.
The undercover investigation was in conjunction with Channel 4 and The I newspaper in the United Kingdom. It was reported that workers at factories in China that supply clothes to Shein frequently work up to 18 hours a day with no weekends and just one day off per month.
Business Insider reports that the news organisations say a woman using a fake name got a job in two factories and secretly filmed what she saw as she worked there. The footage was shown in Untold: Inside the Shein Machine. It’s available on YouTube.
One of the factories supplying clothing items to Shein pay their workers an amount equivalent to R10,000 per month. They are required to make at least 500 pieces of clothing per day.
At another factory where the journalist also went undercover, footage shows that the workers are not paid a basic salary, but rather a very small amount per item made. This means they often work 18 hours per day just to be able to earn a decent salary.
They are fined if they make a mistake and the money is deducted from their salary at the end of the month.
Image credit: The Business of Fashion